When belts everywhere are being tightened as the credit crunch claims increasing numbers of financial scalps, the Government gives the impression it is beyond the cash crisis affecting every pocket in the country.

Stamp duty bankrolled Government spending sprees. But that was in the good times. Now that financial landscapes are being drastically re-drafted there has never been a more pressing time for a roots-and-branches re-design of the tax systems which actually feed the stagnation that imperils so much.

Give us the green light to get moving
THE city council asks motorists what they think is wrong with the road network in Sheffield. Sadly there is no silver bullet solution and the quest for a quick fix show that the new administration has all road users' interests at heart is doomed to come unstuck.

Tinkering with a junction here or a sequencing of traffic lights there will do little to put right two decades of following a policy which was designed to 'adjust the balance of priority away from the private car towards buses, pedestrians and cyclists'.

That policy didn't work when it was introduced in 1987 and it certainly isn't working now after the problems mushroomed out of all proportions over the last 20 years. We need green light thinking to accompany the green lights motorists want to greet them.

Great to be a Dane
THINKING of relocating to the world's happiest spot? Look no further than homely Denmark. While we Brits languish at number 21 in the happiness list, the Danes came out first with a philosophy of peace, democracy and social equality. In the meantime we fret about the housing market, fuel prices and the cost of our annual holiday... and fantasise about job prospects in Denmark no doubt!


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